


And into the River We'd Dive

by welltimedsmiles



Category: Dawson's Creek
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-05-10
Updated: 2007-05-10
Packaged: 2017-10-23 20:37:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/254737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/welltimedsmiles/pseuds/welltimedsmiles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>...<i>he realizes he’s not really welcome here anymore. </i> [1,996 words]</p>
            </blockquote>





	And into the River We'd Dive

It takes two, nearly (maybe) three years for him to feel like this is sure enough. That she will stay and it won’t all dissolve in front of him.

So Pacey busts out his credit card and gets what he can. It’s not what he wants to give her; what he wants to give her would be something that says, “I know I’m not good enough; I’m probably not what you want, but take me anyway,” but he can’t afford that.

He’s also afraid of what the answer to that would be. Instead he sticks with this, simple and understated. He says, “Loving you is enough for me.” Because otherwise, he’s afraid the answer might not be yes and a kiss.

*****

They get married in the fall. Dawson flies in and spends most of the reception outside on his cell phone.

Little Amy is the flower girl. Everyone says it’s just like they imagined it would be. As he dances with her across the floor of the Icehouse, Pacey agrees with them. Just for the moment anyway.

*****

They end up moving back to Capeside. Joey wants to write and says she’ll never do it while working on other people’s stuff. They get a place near Jack and Doug’s; cute little townhouses cozied around the Starbucks and Burger Kings that are overtaking the town.

She sits on the porch of the house with her laptop or notebook and coffee. At first Pacey and everyone else would ask her how the book was coming. She would smile, her lips tight and shift in her seat, she’d just answer, “It’s coming.” Pacey stops asking before anyone else does, but eventually every one stops asking.

The fall that Amy starts first grade (Pacey can remember watching her get off the school bus as Joey tells him about the job), she takes a job teaching English Comp at a community college 45 minutes away.

“That sounds good, doesn’t it? I mean…” her voice trails off and she doesn’t look at him.

Pacey just nods and wishes he could stop the “I’m sorry,” from coming to his lips before it’s too late.

He doesn’t.

  


*****

Her skin has turned to ice beneath his fingers and her gaze is hard across the counter when he tells her he’s got to work another late night. She just nods and says she’s got papers to grade anyway.

Even after he closes shop, he finds so many reasons not to make it home. He stops by the station to take Doug some doughnuts; he stops and talks to the guy at the all night gas station about how the local football team is doing for the season.

When he does come home, she’s asleep on the couch with a rerun of _The Fresh Prince_ playing softly. He throws a thick blanket from the bed over her and he pours himself a drink. It’s cold enough outside that the night air and a drink give him the kick in the ass he deserves.

It’s not her he’s avoiding, it’s himself.

*****

“Hey. How are things?” Why the hell does Dawson always sound so chipper when he calls? It’s like he forgets to turn off the sleazy faux-charm he’d always had lurking beneath his skin.

“Fine. Jo’s outside if you want me to…”

“Man, you know, I like to talk to you too.”

“Yeah, I just don’t have much to say, I guess. Things are things.” Pacey shrugs, attempting to convey the plodding ordinariness to of his life in anyway possible.

“That’s what Jo always says,” Dawson finally answers back, “Seeing if I couldn’t get a second opinion.” Pacey falls silent for a second and the then coughs, waiting to see what hell this could possibly be leading to, “I… look, I’m going to Australia for two months to shoot this thing for Lion’s Gate, I just thought I would stop by on my way out of the states to see you guys this weekend if you’re not…”

“Actually, I think Jo has one of her literary things she’s going off to this weekend? I think Jack’s going with her too so they can be all Literary Fag Hags or whatever together and since Doug’s doing the law enforcement thing I think I’ve got Amy duty.”

“Oh. Okay, well I guess that’s a no guest thing then. I’ll drop you a post card or something.”

“Yeah.”

Pacey flips the phone closed and doesn’t bother to care about what a horrible lie that was. He thinks it has to be better than the truth.

“Who was that?” Joey asks, setting her book down on her lap as he walks into the bedroom.

“Dawson. He wanted to stop and see us.”

“What did you say?” She asks, biting her lip.

“He changed his mind.” He rolls over; he thinks he feels her sigh in relief as he pulls the blanket around his chin.

*****

It’s Jack’s birthday. There’s a big number 40 on the cake and Amy won’t stop giggling as she and Andie tease him about it. Doug just kisses the birthday boy. Pacey notices the grey dotting his friend’s hair and finally he looks at Joey sitting across the table from him.

The lines on her face are harder; her cheekbones stand out in thinness. It’s the sort of severity an Evil English Teacher should probably have. Wisps of hair, gray and brown, stick out from a long half-done ponytail. Pacey knows, even though he works hard not to think about it, that his own hair is thinning, that his face is taking on the vague puffiness of being past youth but not quite actually *old*.

Still, it’s the sort of moment that makes one need to drink. Need to fuck. Need to… be someone other than the person one is.

That night he kisses Joey, holding her hand, and he wants everything to be different again. He wants to see her eyes light up when she sees him.

Instead, as they make love (*make love* so perfunctory, so… old) he just sees tiredness and confusion covering her.

Her skin is cold and he realizes he’s not really welcome here anymore.

And he really does understand why.

*****

Pacey can’t leave. He’s physically incapable of leaving, so instead he has to wreck it all and then try to burn what’s left.

He does it with a blond accountant he meets when trying to get some help with the Icehouse taxes. She’s his age, his thing for 40 year-olds finally catching up to him, with legs and a smile and she… there’s warmth there.

He’s not careful. He doesn’t try to be.

Amy tells him, “If you don’t tell her, I will.” He should have never let her waitress for him.

He doesn’t make excuses, doesn’t try to make her see this as anything other than what it is, Pacey blowing their life up for them because he can’t stand to see reality.

He doesn’t say that; he just says, “I’m sorry, Jo, it just happened.” Her eyes are wet and she wipes away what might be a tear with the sleeve of her oversized sweater She turns away from him and shuts the door to the bathroom behind her quietly.

Pacey throws some clothes into a duffel bag and takes up residence on Jack and Doug’s couch.

*****

Amy doesn’t talk to him. She just stands there with her righteous teenage girl annoyance and waits for Pacey to hand over her check. Pacey just tears the check out and takes another drink.

Jack notes that Pacey’s drinking more. Too much.

When he sees Andie sitting at the dinner table one night, Pacey almost thinks they’ve arranged an intervention for him.

No, it’s Jack’s birthday, again.

Has it really been a years (multiple ones!) since Pacey started burning his life down around him? The blue and white "43" on the cake inform him that it has.

At least he knows how to fuck everything up.

*****

Andie finds him in the back yard.

“What are you doing?” She sits next to him, her toes close to his hand and Pacey allows his fingers to tickle the bottoms of her bare feet.

“Well, this bottle of scotch and I have unfinished business together, but you are welcome to join in.” Andie waves a hand at the offer.

“Jack’s worried about you,” she says matter-of-factly. “So’s Doug, of course, but Jack’s more… well you know, Doug sort of expects this from you, I guess? No, I don’t know.” They sit outside for a little while longer, “Joey is too,” she says finally.

Pacey knows that. He sees her sometimes. She comes by and gets a hamburger or sits and talks about students or whatever with Jack. Her voice is quiet as Pacey wanders in.

“I don’t want her to be.”

“The problem with you, Pacey, the thing you never seemed to get, was that no matter how hard you tried, sometimes people are just determined to love you and maybe that means something.”

“And you don’t have that problem?” he asks her, rolling over and allowing his face to brush up against her calf.

“I’m not the one sleeping on my brother’s couch because I can’t cope with it.”

Pacey nods and for the moment copes the only way he knows how, he takes a drink and kisses Andie on the knee. It doesn’t go farther than that. Just her hand in his hair and a few soft kisses as they fade out into the night in the back yard.

*****

He waits until Spring, when the waters are no longer iced over and the breeze coming from the ocean is just sort of chilled.

There’s a boat he bought months before, it’s nicer than the original True Love. He can afford not to buy something that needs repair and imagination to turn into something workable.

He sits in front of the house waiting for her to come home. When she pulls up, her bag overstuffed with books and papers, he takes her things and slides them back into the car.

“Pacey.” His lips meet hers and she folds carefully into him. It’s strange and awkward, like puzzle pieces that used to fit but after too many years of wear are only at the moment aware that they’re supposed to go together.

They don’t travel anywhere that night. They have lives to lead outside of the deck of the small white boat in the harbor.

At first, she just looks at him.

“I never knew you were still this sentimental," she says finally. He doesn’t know if her faint smile is appreciation or mocking. He’s not sure which one he really wants it to be.

“It’s a dirty shameful secret.” He holds his hand out to hers and his heart nearly escapes from his chest when her fingers entwine easily into his.

They end up holding each other, doing the sort of lame Jr. High slow dancing to music they only imagine on the deck.

They collapse together, Pacey cradling her head against his shoulder. As the sun comes up, she wakes him with a kiss.

“We could move back to the city,” he murmurs, a strange peace offering of desperation, trying to find his way back to making things the way they should be.

“I don’t want the city. I… I want you.” Her words are wounded, escaping from far too many years bottled up.

“Fuck, Jo, I always want you. There’s never been a moment when I didn’t *want* you.” He pulls her into him and her body stiffens, and for a terrified moment, Pacey fears that whatever he’s done isn’t enough to fix this broken heap between them.

“You wanted to love me," she says, “You didn’t want me to love you back. After a while, I.. I know I didn’t bother to try.”

“You could have told me.” And he knows that’s not true. A wreck is sometimes easier to live with when it’s the only thing you know.

“I love you, Pacey.” She kisses him and pulls him up with her, the boat swaying gently beneath them.

For the first time, Pacey lets himself believe it.

[the end]


End file.
